Monday, November 16, 2009

Trailing cow/calf pairs up Dry Creek

Last Saturday (11-14-09) our family and a few of our neighbors gathered some of our cattle from the rough country down Dry Creek and moved them a little closer to home. The high temperature was around 40 degrees with lots of sun early on.


This is the pasture where we started gathering. If you look closely in the center of the picture, you will see some cows on the top of the far plateau. (click on picture to enlarge)

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Crossing Dry Creek. We are almost to Gumbo Hill. (notice Poco's ears)

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We are now almost to Buck's place. Only about three miles to go. A few clouds are coming in and the breeze is getting cool. Fingers and toes are getting cold.

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Bobbie

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Look what showed up

A few days ago something happened that was odd. A wild turkey showed up! She's been hanging around the chicken coop for the past three days and evidently wants to stay.
Here's some pictures.


Our milk pen calf named Copper.


Our long horned cow named Killer.

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Our dog, Sam, trying to play with our yearling milk pen calf named Ebony.
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My calf from my half-longhorn cow named Clover.
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The turkey that showed up.

Danny

Monday, November 9, 2009

Weaning some of the calves

Today we weaned the calves that we brought in on Saturday. We also sorted off about twenty cows off that were getting old or had bad feet.

Here we are taking the cattle in.

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Taking them into the corral.

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Jessi and Mom sorting the cows and calves.

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Danny watching the gate.



D.J.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Gathering cattle

Today we gathered the 2 year olds and 3 year olds along with a few old cows that we are going to ship. We brought them in to a closer pasture so we can wean the calves Monday. It was a beautiful day for the 7th of November. Everything went well, so well we had time to put more tin on the ceiling in the shop. I think everbody is going to be glad when that job is done.

My four helpers, DJ, Danny, Jessi, and Bobbie.


Heading down off of the ridge a couple miles south of our house.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Various happenings in October up until November 3d

We will try to update our blog at least once a month, maybe less, maybe more. I will try to fill in what we have been doing in October.


Around the middle of October we helped Dad ship his steers. It was a foggy morning. We had a couple neighbors helping along with our crew of kids. The following pictures are up near Blue mountain at the corrals.






We needed to plow our alfalfa down across the river this fall. That usually turns in to a big job especially for this cowboy that isn't all that crazy about farming. Not only do we have to plow, but disk, mulch, and level. Fortunately I can rent a mulcher, disk, and leveler from my brother-in-law Del. Bobbie ran the mulcher quite a bit for me, and DJ got to start plowing this year. He did quite a bit of plowing. Sure was nice to have the extra help. We may not get done leveling this fall since we did get quite a bit of moisture.


Some people have asked what a roll over plow looks like so here it is.


Some have also asked what a mulcher looks like too, so another picture for them.


This is a picture of the equipment over across the river. The most important one is the airplane. I might be a little biased but I would hate the thought of having to drive back and forth all the time 45 minutes compared to 10. Besides it doesn't matter how bad of day I have farming as soon as the airplane tires leave the ground it's a good day.


Brother-in-law, Del digging beets.


Neighbor, Keith Nelson digging beets. This was when it was dry. They had about half the beets done when it turned wet. That looked like a miserable job then, but they did get them out in pretty good shape.


In our spare time we are trying to work on the new shop/hangar. This is my crew helping put steel on the ceiling. We picked up a gantry crane at a farm auction down in South Dakota this fall. After we got it home I thought it would make a good cart for a scaffold. It works really well. It rolls easy, so easy you forget that you need to stop close to 4000 lbs that is rolling. Keeping it from going to fast with three kids is the main thing to concentrate on.


Three of my helpers.


Helpers in action. They think I don't hurry fast enough when they are holding tin up. I don't see what the problem is. They look like they have everything under control, don't they?



Yesterday we gathered the yearling replacement heifers and brought them in close. Today after I got done helping the neighbor ship his calves we gathered the heifers, ear tagged them, year branded them, and Ivomected them(it kills the parasites). We didn't Ivomec them for several years but just got tired of seeing cows with no hair in Feb. when it was cold. It takes a lot of feed when they lose their hair. We have enough parasites in our government with out having them on our cows too.
After we got done working them we hauled them down to the river pasture on this side of the river. The following are pictures of that.